Chosen Ones
by DeAnno
Summary: The cast of Buffy the Vampire Slayer are capes on Earth Bet, in Brockton Bay. In this damaged world of villains and heroes, most things are different, but somehow everything that matters is the same.
1. Pilot: Scene 1

"I have six spells right now. The usual four plus … umm, Vines and Potence. That's Mush and Trainwreck nearby." Dark Witch could feel the extra spells filling her up, taking their places besides the four that were already maxed.

Key piped up at that, "Wouldn't be a party if there was nothing to steal." Her Panopticomnicon was a huge mask extending out from her face with collection of lenses that looked like it could belong to an eye doctor instead of a cape. The over engineered contraption spun noisily before clicking into a new position. "Luckily, there it is." She pointed enthusiastically with her similarly oversized gauntlet. "It seems pretty big, though not for Squealer, I guess, and it's pretty much done. I think I should have it ready to go A-S-A-P, especially if the 'Master' over there is any help besides being April's cheerleader."

At that, April said cheerily "My Master is great at helping me out with all sorts of tasks!" For his own part, Overlord looked a little annoyed at the biting comment from a mere tween, but stayed quiet for a moment, seemingly checking on something under April's blonde hair. His regal purple-and-black theme was a decided contrast to April's street clothes and cheap domino mask; he still hadn't finished the costume for his otherwise impeccable gynoid robot.

Taking an annoyed tone, he finally replied, "Key, can't you remember we're dropping the nicknames tonight? Too much of that in costume and it'll compromise our identities, and besides you're confusing April."

Key pouted at being reprimanded, and Dark Witch hesitated for a second before getting back on topic, "So that's a go right? Low risk and high reward?"

"Five by Five, Dark Witch." Slayer, the leader of the Scooby Gang, sounded as confident as always. She supposed Slayer had reason to be confident, as impossible to kill as her Changer power made her. The sultry dark-skinned girl glanced over her newly expanded ranks and strode into the lead. Faux-tribal adornments accented her risque costume, and the bright white warpaint on the face she was wearing was even less real, merely a change in coloration done with her power.

Not for the first time, Willow worried her about her own costume in comparison. She felt a little slutty wearing the loose black silks, but was she even going to be able to get Xander's attention when compared against Faith?

Despite the goofy jester's getup he wore, Cretin was all business at the moment, and paying more attention to their surroundings than to either Slayer or Dark Witch. As they strode out of the alley, Dark Witch saw a distraction popping up along a more obvious sight line for the thugs guarding the outside of Squealer's garage. A swerving car raced drunkenly from the left side of the street with another two after it in close pursuit. Half of them dived for cover and most of the rest turned to watch the spectacle. Slayer leaped out of the shadows like a tiger, arms stretching out and bulking up as she grabbed two of the Merchants still standing and threw them wildly into the rest.

Not to be outdone, Overlord zapped a surprised Merchant with his taser and commanded "Blitz Three Delta!" April reoriented with an inhuman twitch and then cartwheeled her way into a jump kick, taking out another unwary thug. As she got up to repeat the maneuver, three duplicates of her appeared, all bouncing off in different directions. A couple popped into nothingness as they hit their targets, but the confusion they caused proved almost as dangerous as the real April as the Scoobies quickly decimated the opposition.

One of their luckier foes had managed to dive to cover well enough to avoid the initial barrage and pulled his gun as Dark Witch and Key exited the alley after the others. Dark Witch shook off the shock of her first real fight in time to shout at him "HEY! Look at me!" Her eyes filled up with black as his locked on them, and his movements slowed, stunned and stupid. Just as she was wondering how she could best knock him out without losing eye contact, Key ran up and nailed him in the side of the head with her giant (single) gauntlet, unceremoniously dropping him to the concrete.

"We're clear! Key, get the door! And Dark Witch, be ready with your mumbo-jumbo the second it's open!" Slayer had just finished the last man standing outside, and Key quickly ran up to make short work of Squealer's garage lock. Meanwhile, Dark Witch looked around to see if anyone on her team was hurt, but the whole of the group was unscathed, and thanks to Cretin, rapidly multiplying. Scant moments later, tools extended from Key's gauntlet and took the lock into its component pieces, and she rolled out of the way as Slayer threw the rolling door up and open, seemingly surrounded by six dozen of her teammates. The fight outside the garage hadn't lasted longer than ten of Dark Witch's hyperventilating breaths.

They were greeted by another dozen or so stoned losers in various states of unreadiness on the other side, reinforced by Trainwreck just finished getting into his mech and given cover by the massive form of Mush already covered in soggy garbage and three times the height of a man. Dark Witch was true to Slayer's orders, shocking Trainwreck's mech with an arc of black lightning and exploding shadowy vines to entangle several of the lesser thugs. Overlord lobbed a stun grenade to confuse another handful of Merchants, and Slayer and half of her illusory copies leapt straight for Mush, her hands exploding into foot long wicked shearing claws as she tore into his disgusting form. The Scoobies real and imagined swarmed through the door and the second battle was on.

Dark Witch entered and immediately noticed a giant mechanical spider splayed out on a very bizarre version of a garage lift. Its eyes lit up, and for a moment it looked like it might not just sit around to be stolen. She momentarily regretted using up her anti-Tinker spell, but Key, Overlord, and several of their own doubles ran over to the unconventional vehicle and started hacking at it themselves. Key's gauntlet exploded into metallic tentacles that networked themselves into Squealer's creation and shorted it back to a reboot sequence, and Overlord started lowering the lifts to get it ready to move on its own.

Dark Witch ran toward the paralyzed powersuit Tinker accompanied by eight of her doubles in close formation, but eight quickly turned to seven when one of them was winged with a gunshot and disappeared. She (and her seven remaining duplicates) eeked in panic, but in the second it took her to figure out who had shot at her, Cretin had already got to the barely entangled baddie and knocked him down for the count with his weighted scepter. He refreshed her eighth duplicate to boot, and added a ninth and a tenth for additional protection.

She got back on task, and just as Trainwreck's mech started stuttering back into motion, he looked her way. Dark Witch skidded to a stop and trapped his gaze inside her own black eyes, the enlarged irises of her mirror images rippling with her own in unison. This time, it would take more than a big gauntlet to do the job, but April was up to the task. She dove at his legs with a cry of "The bigger they are, the harder they fall," and Trainwreck toppled and landed badly, leaving his oversized form exposed to a serious beating from the almost comically smaller April.

Slayer was still wrestling with a rapidly shrinking Mush, but the rest of the fight was wrapping up and it would only be a matter of time before Key had cracked the lock on the spiderbot vehicle they were here to steal. Overlord was looting bags of cash and tossing them into the spider, and Cretin was calling her over to fix a nasty gash he'd gotten on his arm in the melee. "XA- umm, Cretin, you're _hurt-_"

Just as Dark Witch was about to move to help her oldest friend, she noticed two more of her spells start to fill up from nothing. Telekinesis and Shadow Blend, meaning Skidmark and Squealer were near. "Wait. Guys! We have a prob-" And then _two more_ spells she didn't recognize started filling up after that. "We have an even _bigger_ problem! Skidmark, Squealer, and two other unknown capes all just crossed into my range! The plan was only for two capes, what are we going to do?"

Slayer was still busy, but Cretin reacted quickly, running to Dark Witch and looking around the room. He instantiated a couple dozen new clones to replace ones that had been lost during the fight, and announced, "Looks like us ambushers are about to be us ambushees. Key, we need to blow this drugsicle stand nowish or things are going to get hairy fast!"

Dark Witch snapped out of her panic as he reached her and brushed her hand over the bloody tear in his costume, her spell pushing Slayer's borrowed power into his arm to heal it. Shadowy tissue formed from nothing and then burst into reality, leaving Cretin uninjured but his jester's outfit still torn. Fortunately, the injury had looked worse than it was, and her Cure Wounds pool was still more than half full.

Key was now in the driver's seat tucked into the head of the spider's minivan sized body, but her gauntlet was still whirring like crazy and tied into the guts of the machine. "I have simple control, but without the programming cracked this thing isn't going to move faster than a snail. Get loaded up, but it'll be another minute before we can move." The octopedal device was now standing on its own, and the retractable roof slid the rest of the way off the passenger compartment in the body exposing two rows of hefty bucket seats. The spider started taking hesitant steps to the exit but clearly Key didn't have her balance with it yet.

"April, Regroup Tactical Beta!", Overlord shouted as he was first into the passenger compartment. With an upbeat "Yes, Master," April upended a stack of crates on Trainwreck's still prone form and ran to join him in the passenger seats. She hadn't been able to deal much real damage to Trainwreck's durable mech, but between the lingering effects of her spell and his compromised position Dark Witch expected he would stay out of action long enough.

Slayer finally managed to disengage from Mush, tossing his now barely larger than human form into a corner of the garage. Lingering cuts and bruises from the battle faded to nothing even as she spoke "Good work everyone, let's bail!"

Suddenly, Squealer's earsplitting loudspeaker cut through the noises of the night, "Not so fast you little shits! Nobody steals my tech!" and her helicopter descended, filling up the entire garage door. Skidmark was riding in the backseat, and even as he layered stripe after stripe of his power on the helicopter's stabilizer wings, the railguns mounted on them opened up, destroying a handful of duplicates, causing massive damage to the garage's contents, and putting a foot long spike through Slayer's chest.

Things would've been even worse, but a panicked Dark Witch threw up a quick mirror shield to deflect the fire back at the chopper. With the rounds bouncing back against Skidmark's acceleration fields it wasn't very effective at doing damage, but it managed to at least block the tail end of the volley before winking out.

Despite the massive hole in her chest, Slayer burst into action, grabbing up Dark Witch in a bridal carry and jumping with her on stretching legs to the back of the spider. "April, the manhole, now!" At Slayer's order, April turned from her path back to Overlord and instead worked on pulling up the giant circular cover presumably leading to the overlarge city sewer system the spider was designed to fight in.

Meanwhile, her gruesome wound already healed, Slayer jumped back towards Squealer and Skidmark to cover the escape, flanked by twenty new doubles spilling out of the spider after her. Dark Witch wished she could do more to help, but her anti-tinker bolt and her shadow vines were both still refilling, and only one of the newer four spells seemed ready to go. She prodded it hesitantly, trusting her instincts to make sure she didn't screw up the first activation of an unknown spell that badly.

Immediately, a second visual sense overlaid her usual sight, painting streams of red around her in a complete 360 degree view. She saw the whole battle as a collection of bright red nets; her teammates in the car, Slayer fighting Squealer, and Skidmark now out of the helicopter and trying to get Trainwreck and Mush back into the fight. Was she seeing their blood? It was gross but cool, but just as the duration was about to run out, she noticed something terrifying, coming from below.

"April! Watch out!" Willow shrieked, prompting April to dive to the side just as a pair of bright red tentacles launched the large manhole into the air and then pulled up the body they were attached to. The peroxide blonde man was suspended in midair by three of his animated blood whips, and gracefully used the fourth to launch a pale goth girl out of the sewer and straight at the slowly activating spider. Desperately reacting, Willow activated the other unknown spell (just barely ready) and a high pressure torrent of blood blasted straight out of her hands at the airborne girl.

Things wouldn't be that easy however, as the newest Merchant on the scene easily aborted her flight by grabbing one of the spider's legs and swinging around it, letting the blood hose shoot by harmlessly. The goth's elaborate black tresses flowed through the air, even as April was leaping into action against the blood-controlling man in the black leather jacket. Dark Witch hoped April could lose gracefully for a while against such a terrifying opponent, while the three Scoobies in the passenger seats dealt with the goth girl's invasion.

"This is a rather dirty setting for a tea party, but needs must as demons drive. I'm Miss Edith, and I'll be your host for the evening." Even though Cretin had rattled off copies of himself, Dark Witch, and Overlord all over the spider's body, the mentally but not physically unbalanced Miss Edith stared straight at her.

Dark Witch responded by activating her freezing stare, but her gift horse was nowhere to be found as Miss Edith closed her eyes the instant the spell was cast. "Naughty, naughty. Don't make cross eyes at mother." Overlord tried to exploit her temporary blindness with his taser, but she was far too quick and dodged through several doubles and right into Dark Witch, burying a wicked knife directly through her silks and into her guts as she pushed her out of the spider.

The landing was rough, jarring her head as she bounced on the hard pavement, but somehow Dark Witch still maintained consciousness in spite of the impact and mortal injury. The room blurred, sounds muted, and Edith's face loomed above her. "The blood came out of you so merry and quick before, but now it's slow and tepid. You'll never have your own act at the fair if you keep on like this." Edith raised the knife to finish her off, but just as she was about to strike, April clumsily tackled her, pinning her in a heap.

"Remember, always apply proper first aid with pressure on a wound and a clean bandage." Willow could forgive the robot the less than cogent comment, but reflected that it was too bad that would be the last thing she ever heard. Woozily, she relaxed on the floor, and the room faded further away.

Then, as she lay dying, her Xander appeared to her, in all his wonderful regalia. He said something she couldn't quite make out. This would be a much more fitting ending. She might even get a kiss. Instead, he slapped her, ever so lightly, and disappeared. Then another Xander, more words, another light slap. On the third Xander, she made out "cure", and realized she could just heal herself.

Struggling, Dark Witch moved her hand to her bleeding gut, and dumped the whole of Cure Wounds' spell pool into her gashed intestines. Dark Witch immediately took a deep breath, smarted at the lesser pain still unhealed, and then got to her feet, completely embarrassed with herself.

The fight was chaos all around her, as Slayer was still dueling Squealer and her overengineered helicopter near the door, Key and Overlord frantically tried to get the spider into a state to do something useful, and Cretin's clones bounced across the landscape, dying in droves to Edith's infuriated friend with the blood whips. Just as she regained her bearings, a newly recovered Trainwreck charged her, prompting her to use his own spell to fight him off.

Dark Witch wound up her arm in an exaggerated motion and threw an uppercut right into his mech's stomach as he reached her, the Potence spell exploding dark firecrackers from the point of impact and brutally wrecking Trainwreck's suit. The sheer impulse of the blow blasted him straight across the room … and into the surprised form of Skidmark, screaming a last tortured "Goatfucker!" out to the world as he was nearly ripped in half by the high speed collision and dragged gorily across the floor.

She felt Skidmark leave her range, his spell's power slowly draining back down toward zero. Trainwreck groaned as he rolled to a stop, and Skidmark was clearly dead. Willow Rosenberg had almost died herself not twenty seconds ago, and now she'd gone and killed a man. She'd killed a gang leader. A drug dealer. Probably a rapist and a murderer too.

"I'll fucking rape your eyeballs out with my screwdriver for that, you dumbass goth pretender! Do you think your fakeass hocus pocus can protect you from this?" Squealer shouted over her loudspeaker. She didn't give Dark Witch anymore time to reflect, ignoring Slayer to let loose another railgun volley at her. Quick action with the Mirror Shield and numerous new duplicates saved Dark Witch from being ripped to shreds, but an errant spike grazed her leg and sent her tumbling to the ground again. As she dropped, another dozen clones of her popped into place, all apparently injured in the same way.

Even as Dark Witch was desperately putting pressure on the wound, Key shouted over Squealer's rant on the spiderbot's own speakers. "Annnd we're online! Round up little doggies, it's time to go home!" The larceny tinker whooped with victory as the spiderbot's movements changed from hesitant to fluid, and she moved it up into combat with leather jacket, supporting Cretin and April in their battle with the lightning quick Breaker.

Dark Witch noticed that he'd picked up the unconscious Miss Edith in his arms, and the added weight was slowing his reactions and hampering his defense. Cretin spammed copies of the long, piercing spiderlegs Key was using to fight, and Overlord's souped-up taser seemed to be disrupting the blood whips, ever so slightly. Against their combined assault, the peroxide blond was forced to give ground, backing up and exposing the open escape hatch to the sewers.

Fighting against the pain, Dark Witch used the last dregs of Skidmark's diminishing spellpower to wrap a couple of crates in black ribbons of TK. She hurled them at Squealer's still functional helicopter, knocking it off course, which let Slayer disengage from her holding action and join the Scoobies at the hatch. Key used attachments on two of the spider legs to carefully lift Dark Witch up into the passenger compartment, and as the spiderbot descended into the sewers Slayer and April exchanged a couple parting blows with the mystery cape's resilient blood whips.

Moments later, the spider was in the sewer and the last two Scoobies leapt down into the passenger compartment, crowded with Scoobies and doubles alike. Even as they were escaping, the blood cape had apparently left his sleeping ally upstairs and was trying to follow them down. He wasn't having an easy time of it though, even unburdened. Dark Witch let off another pressurized Blood Hose spell at him, Overlord kept it up with the now fading taser, and Key even managed to activate an acid weapon mounted in the spider's butt to join the ranged barrage. Lacking support from the other Merchants in the cramped quarters of the sewers, he retreated back up the hatch, and the Scoobies escaped.

After a few more seconds, April broke the tense silence of the pumped up group. "Remember kids, safety first! Make sure to buckle your seatbelts."


	2. Pilot: Scene 2

"_Don't feel bad girl, that was just what she wanted. I suppose you could say that Death's your Gift."_

Buffy Summers woke from her nightmare in a cold sweat, her blanket torn and her blood pounding in her ears. The past was so not a place she liked to revisit. Her digital clock read 12:53 AM; she'd barely slept at all. Tossing and turning, she tried to find sleep again, but she was restless. She had to go out.

Quietly, she snuck over to her closet, popping open the secret compartment she kept her costume in. The skintight unitard and matching face mask covered in bright patterns of flowing lightning bolts didn't match her mood, but it was comforting and safe, a symbol of all the good things she'd done.

She was all dressed up as Potential and cracking open her window when she heard a quiet knock on her bedroom door. With a frustrated sigh, she opened it, letting her stepfather in.

"Looks like my little girl is up to another jailbreak. I could tell you a thing or two about those." Ethan stepped into the room, looking at the ripped blanket neutrally and taking a seat on the bed. "You can talk to me you know. It's ok to be less than strong sometimes."

Potential chose to ignore the second comment. "Maybe Madcap could. But according to mom he is most definitely gone for good, and my dad Assault is squeaky clean." She paused, staring out the window and considering. "It's strange mice are the only animal that really squeaks, even though they're dirty all the time."

"Maybe the mice just want you to think that they're clean. You can't trust anybody these days," Ethan replied. He was always good at making her feel better, but Buffy felt like she needed something more tonight. She sat back down on her bed, next to him.

"You know I'll be safe. I just need to go out and do something, maybe make things better somehow." Buffy wrung her hands. Really, that was only half the truth.

"Ok. It isn't a school night, anyways. Just don't let your mother find out I could've stopped you." Ethan got back up, and opened the door.

"You wish you could stop me, dad," Buffy whispered playfully to his retreating back, just loud enough for him to hear. After he was gone, she finished opening the window, and Potential was loose, running the rooftops of Brockton Bay. She didn't have obvious mover powers like some capes did, but her strength let her be fast, faster than a normal human could really be, and she had a natural talent for parkour.

Just running across the city, she could pretend that she was just Potential, the leader of the Wards, a master of unarmed combat, the up and coming peppy personality of the Protectorate East-North-East. Buffy and all her baggage wasn't connected to her, she didn't even have to exist in this lively night of spotlights and shadows.

Without a clear route or destination in mind, Potential patrolled. She was quiet as the wind and just as fast, moving unseen above the people of the Bay. She saw a couple likely criminals skulking around, but they were small time, and none of them did anything wrong while she was watching. Shadow Stalker liked to stake out such small fry, waiting for them to make mistakes, but Potential lived for the hard fights, the even battles, pitting cape against cape. Shadow Stalker might be a better predator, but Potential was a warrior, exultant.

And then there was someone else on the next roof. Angel's white, feather-patterned costume shone in the ambient neon light as he leant on his golden painted staff, watching her. Somehow, she could always find him. Potential made the last leap, and joined the elder hero on the adjacent building.

Potential looked up at him, and felt the last of the quiet panic that had gripped part of her since she'd awoken let go. "Angel."

"Potential." He smiled a bit, and said, "We keep meeting like this. You're not on the patrol roster tonight, shouldn't you be asleep?"

"What? A girl can't look for a party on a Friday night these days? Are you sure these Puritan, New Englander morals aren't getting to you?" Potential had more reason than that to hope Angel wasn't fighting a sudden Puritanism infection.

"Not many Puritan morals to be found in this town." As usual, Angel avoided the question.

"Nope," she said, popping the 'P'. "Definitely not on this roof, anyway." Bold as brass, Potential slunk up to her boyfriend through the shadows of the rooftop and kissed him. Half-masks had way more benefits than just eating on the go.

The kiss was pleasantly long, but eventually Angel broke it, without quite managing to let go of her. "We can't keep going behind people's backs like this." Potential snuggled into his chest, reluctant to listen. "You're so young, and I'm on permanent probation. Maybe we should hold things back a while? I think the Director might even suspect."

Potential made a raspberry into his chest at that. "Giles? He so does not. Trust me Angel, I've known the guy for years. He's great at his job, and trusts us to do our jobs, but he has all the social instincts of an English Librarian."

"He trusts us, he even trusts _me,_ despite everything, and look how we pay him back. If someone got so much as a picture, the scandal..."

"Would totally not be of the big. For all the public knows Potential is 18 and Angel is 20. It's not like there's a sign on me saying 'You must be at least this short to ride.'" Potential paused for a second, digesting that mental image before shoving it to the side. "We might not have _time_ to wait. Our lives are dangerous Angel, especially yours, with the terms they have you on."

"You know I'm invincible." Angel chuckled a bit, even though Potential remained silent. "You've hit me enough times in practice to know at least. And if you had a good set for Endbringers, I know you would be there for every one."

Potential laughed a little too at his reference to their lopsided sparring matches, but sobered up quickly. "There still hasn't been a solid Scion sighting since Canberra." Angel didn't have anything to say to that. It had started as an unsubstantiated rumor, but after more than a month all but the most devout had to concede the first superhero's so called 'vacation' was real.

She filled the silence, "There's never as much time as you think there is." She kissed him again, holding him tight with her full strength, and this time Angel didn't try to push her away.

Sweet minutes passed, and it seemed like things might start getting more intense, but Angel's phone interrupted the proceedings with a buzz. The pair jumped, startled, but Potential made a zipping motion over her mouth and gestured for Angel to answer.

The phone wasn't on speaker, but Potential's hearing could just barely make it out anyway when she focused. Clockblocker's voice announced "Hey Angel, the Merchants seem to have gotten into another dustup and there were too many loud and scary noises for the PRT to want to poke their heads in all by themselves. Think you could spare some time from your rooftop brooding to check it out?" As usual, Clockblocker was not impressed with Angel's distant and gloomy attitude.

"Where?" Angel replied tersely.

"Their usual stomping grounds. I'm sending the exact coordinates to your phone. It's a little bit of a hike from your position, but Armsmaster is in the middle of something with the ABB right now and even farther away."

"Got it. Angel out." Angel flipped the phone closed again and lightly shook his head at Potential. "I don't know how you manage to be friends with those people, let alone lead them."

"It takes a woman's touch." Potential smiled, and then danced excitedly. "I'm coming too. Just say you ran into me on the way." Angel didn't bother trying to argue, and they moved out across the rooftops into one of the worst parts of the dangerous city. Angel lacked Potential's easy skill and didn't quite match her strength either, but his staff was long enough to work as a bit of a pole vault so he didn't slow her down all that much. Just running with him was invigorating in a different way than the kissing was, blood pumping through her veins with the promise of combat to come.

The scene was quiet and mostly empty when they arrived. The large garage door was still mostly open and there were a couple unconscious gang members left, most of them outside on the sidewalk and in the street. Junk was scattered all over and the place and the gory wreck of a large mech was torn in half near one wall.

Angel was serious. "Too much blood, not enough bodies. It's strange that they recovered almost all their wounded from the inside, but not the outside." Along with the scattered bloodstains all over the garage, there was a particularly big pool of it near an access hatch leading downwards.

Potential darted over to it and looked in. "This leads into the sewers. Maybe we could catch them if we hurry?" She could swear she saw gentle ripples in the central channel, and swung herself down to the narrow walkway on the side.

She distantly heard Angel call in the situation as she burst into pursuit at maximum speed, following her instincts at every intersection in the labyrinthine sewer system. She could swear she was getting closer, and could hear distant splashing over the thundering of her footsteps on the dirty concrete walk. Suddenly though, she came to a stop, and looked down, deep into an underwater tunnel. The splashing had stopped.

Angel wasn't out of breath when he arrived at her side, but that didn't mean very much as the hero didn't need to breathe. "I lost him. Or maybe it, I guess. I'm pretty sure it went where I couldn't follow." She gestured to the large, ripped open drain, leading down and down into blackness.

Angel was about to jump in and follow, disgust be damned, but Potential stopped him. "No. You couldn't catch it underwater anyways, it's way too quick. Let's go back to the scene."

It was lucky Angel was with her, because she had actually lost her way in the chase and needed to follow him back the way she came. He commented, "This city really has a huge sewer system. I've never seen anything like it."

"That's my hometown Brockton Bay: city of giant destroyed boats and sewers roomy enough to lose them in." To Potential, chasing villains around down in these tunnels had almost become normal after years of being a Ward. She was just thankful that her costume washed clean easily.

Eventually, they reached the garage again and found that the team of PRT agents had just arrived. The broken mech and the surrounding bits of gore were being inspected thoroughly, and another agent was taking samples at the irregular blood pool.

Angel nodded to the officer and knelt down, dipping his finger in the blood and sniffing. He stepped back again after, chatting quietly with Potential, "There isn't anyone dead over here, and this blood is wrong. I think it came from a power."

"Angel, your detective methodology isn't gross at all." Potential paused, glancing around the room, before continuing in a whisper. "Anybody you used to know?"

"I'm not sure. It's almost like … but there's a lot of it here, probably too much. If who I think it was went down that drain, he's learned a new trick since I last saw him." Angel seemed hesitant. Potential could understand how he wasn't eager to revisit the ghosts of his past.

The roar of a motorcycle cut through the night, and Armsmaster soon rolled right into the garage, stopping near Angel and Potential to get off his bike.

"Status?" Armsmaster was all business, even though he looked a little worn out already by the events of the night. His armor was dirtied up and had a couple surface scratches on it, and it looked like he was missing a bit of his beard.

"It looks like the Merchants had their garage raided sir, by who we don't know. We pursued someone down into the sewers there, but he had a headstart and fled deep underwater." Angel still seemed a bit intimidated by Armsmaster, not having gotten used to the brash Protectorate leader yet.

"Also, Angel said the blood in the big pool over there wasn't human," Potential piped in, taking control of the conversation.

Armsmaster nodded and quickly waved them over with him as he got a sample of his own. "I thought you were off-duty tonight Potential?" he asked.

She easily told the objective truth while avoiding certain particulars, "I was feeling antsy and decided to come out. Crime never sleeps, right? And it isn't like there's school tomorrow anyway."

Armsmaster gave an approving grunt as the attachment in his halberd sucked up a blood sample and then whished back into the densely packed tinker device. Potential knew the chronic workaholic would only approve of putting in extra time at the cost of frivolities like sleep.

The weird blood handled, Armsmaster led them back over to the ruins of the mech. "You should remember to switch your phone's beacon on, to keep control better apprised of the situation on the streets. I assume you've been keeping the Wards running smoothly?"

"Yeah, Shadow Stalker is totally coming out of her shell more, she was even nice to Vista once yesterday. Oh, and Kid Win was wondering if you could spare any time to help him with his Alliterator Canon," Potential wheedled.

Armsmaster gave her a double take before realizing, "You mean his _Alternator_ Canon? It's a little ambitious for him, but being prepared for a superior opponent is often the preparation that matters most. I'll try to make some time next week for it."

The PRT Agents studying the wreck backed away as he approached to look. He studied the failure points where the mech had been ripped in half specifically, paying less attention to the crumpling. "Trainwreck's gear. This damage seems to have happened after it was mission-killed, and it happened fast. This was ripped apart by something that punctured in and tore, the occupant would've been hurt severely during the extraction."

Potential grimaced. "I guess they were in a big hurry? I can imagine criminals like this would rather be injured than in the slammer, and the fight wasn't quiet."

Armsmaster nodded. "Apparently so. This is a pretty resilient design, I could imagine Squealer having trouble getting into it quickly."

There was a bit of a silence as Armsmaster continued to work, and then Angel re-entered the conversation. "Are there any signs of who attacked the Merchants here?"

Potential wondered, "I'd guess the ABB or E88 would have put up gang signs or something, or trumpeted their victory somehow. Faultline doesn't operate in the city if she can avoid it, and the Merchants haven't antagonized her lately that I've heard about. Maybe the Scoobies pulled another robbery here? Slayer could probably grow gills, and I wouldn't put sewer swimming past her." Potential scrunched her nose at the idea.

Armsmaster finally got up from his inspection of the mech and started looking around the wreckage, presumably for something specific. After fishing around a bit, he came up with a scorched, donut-shaped tube filled with circular holes.

"I've seen this so-called Scooby Gang leave these flash-bangs behind before." Armsmaster sighed. "A big confrontation like this is bolder than usual for them. Between this and that hothead Bakuda setting up shop here, we should be ready for another round of gang wars sooner rather than later."


	3. Pilot: Scene 3

"That steampunk cunt is good, I'll give her that. She didn't notice the backup beacon though, that one's transmitting over a subspace carrier signal." Spike could easily hear Squealer's muttering and cursing in the backseat of her helicopter. It cruised through the air with astonishing silence, the whisper quiet rotary blades effortlessly keeping the unaerodynamic looking contraption afloat. Squealer had said something about passive stealth when he'd commented on its ungainly appearance, so he assumed they were protected from radar too.

"Tax Man is cross, but doesn't like us to see. He just can't quite clean up all the mess." Spike moved to steady Miss Edith as she squirmed awake in his lap. Spike and Squealer had been the only Merchant capes still conscious when their hot pursuit of the Scooby Gang (seriously, the Scooby Gang, what a fucking name) began minutes ago. Mush had been unceremoniously thrown into the cargo compartment, and there had been no time to collect Skidmark's body or even extract Trainwreck from his ruined suit; those left behind would have to fend for themselves.

"The tax man came and took his due, but Ms. Piggy is still chasing after Gonzo so the Sun and the Moon will be ever so confused." She was talking crazier than usual, which probably either meant she'd been having more visions while unconscious or that she'd been hit harder on the head than he'd thought. The dried blood on her face was a concern, but his girl was tough, and he was hoping she'd get back to her approximation of functional soon.

"Pet, did you see something in the blood again? This ambush you were so keen on doesn't seem to have turned out so well," Spike hedged.

"The blood was flowing ever so nicely, in a great river! But then I looked at the source and it was just a tiny piddling stream," Edith pouted, leaning into Spike's chest to dry her tears. Silly and useless as she was being at the moment, she was still cute as a button, and Spike thanked his lucky star to be her dark knight.

He rubbed her back gently. "Hush those tears now, none of us here like cheating Trumps and their dirty tricks. You feel up for a round two if we manage to track them down? Maybe we can make her spurt on command." Spike judged she was just having one of her loopier moments, and would be ready to go again should things turn out that way tonight.

Squealer interrupted his consolations with another round of inventive cursing, "Little flat-chested, goggle eyed whore! How could you even GET to that beacon while the spider is running? It's buried in the internal gyroscope, that doesn't even make sense!" Spike was starting to think this chase was not going to end with a fight. "Well you still didn't get the tertiary tracker, did you! I'll fucking strap you down and rape away your virginity with my Spider!"

Edith hadn't just suggested the failed ambush (in rhymes and riddles of course, as she always suggested everything.) She'd led them to Brockton Bay after the thing in Jacksonville. She'd even been the one who wanted to join up with this shaggy 'Merchants' crew. He supposed the drugs had been good, and Edith had been having her fun playing in the sky with Lucy for the past week or so.

Edith's field of focus was a little narrow at times, but since someone had died at the ambush it stood to reason she'd seen it clearly, and she'd probably expected this as a possible result. Had it really 'failed' at all? Spike thought about the ordeal through this new lens, and decided his path of action was certain. For now, he remained as quiet as the chopper itself, idly comforting Edith with his hands and doing up her hair back the right way with a pair of his blood whips.

A few minutes later, his earlier suspicions about the outcome of the chase came to pass. He felt the helicopter come to a slow halt in the sky, and this time from the intercom nothing could be heard at all. Miss Edith narrated what was already clear, "Miss Piggy has lost the scent, and her Kermit will not be in to scold her when she returns."

"Skidmark's really dead. And those fuckers got away with my stuff. Everyone we left at the garage is probably arrested by now. I -" Squealer cut herself off, choking down tears. "I didn't even get revenge."

"Educated prats everywhere say revenge is a dish best served cold," Spike responded.

"_You're _one to talk!" Squealer managed to stifle her sniffles, anger rising again. "It was your nutcase Miss Edith's stupid idea to do all this! Your fucking precious Thinker got my boyfriend killed!"

Spike held back a growl at her insulting his Edith; that wouldn't serve right now. Instead, he replied reasonably, "Now, now, there was more than one failure of intelligence here. Seems to me there were _six_ Scoobies, not just the four you described. And one of the new ones was outside what Miss Edith can see, we both saw her get blindsided back there."

"So? What use are you then? You couldn't help me beat them. We can't even find them now." Squealer played right into his hands. She really wasn't at her best here.

"What use am I? The question you oughta be asking is what use are you, I think," Spike continued. "Aside from me and Edith, the only cape you got left is Mush, down in the cargo compartment. Trainwreck's probably brought in by now, just as you said, and let's be honest; he wasn't worth much anyway."

"You could tell us to get gone; and me and Edith, we'd roll out of this town quick as we rolled in, thanks for the hospitality. But you think you'll somehow be leader of the Merchants after? Do you think there'll even _be_ a Merchants after?" Spike waited for Squealer now, it wouldn't do to lead the pig to water and then shove her face under.

Squealer was quiet, unsure. She'd learned intimidation from Skidmark, but not control. Eventually, she said, "Do you have any more plans then? How to keep the Merchants going, how to stay on top of them, how to kill the fucking Scooby gang?"

"Well, Miss Edith and I, we've sort of perfected the hit and run strategy over the years. Seems like you'd be suited to it with all your planes, trains, and automobiles lying about," Spike offered.

"Yeah… Skidmark was always so attached to territory. It'll be tricky to keep customers if we have to move around a lot though."

"Not as tricky as you might think. Addicts not getting high, they'll find you if they need to." He paused before adding, "And if you know what I mean, most of your customers can't exactly go to the ABB or E88 for a fix. Wearing the wrong team colors, you might say."

"So we keep the Merchants running as a mobile operation. Like gypsies." Squealer was starting to get the faraway look in her eye of a Tinker thinking about tinkering.

"Exactly. You move stuff around, I'll keep the boys in line, Edith will drop us hints, and Mush will be a big pile of garbage. Before you know it, things in the city will turn and we'll have the chance to get our revenge."

"Fine. I'm still in charge though." Spike would let her think that. The helicopter pivoted and started gliding forward again, heading back to one of the Merchant's camouflaged hangars.

The stealth must've been good, because nobody flashy and blasty made any appearances on the way. Minutes later they pulled in for a landing and disembarked. Squealer didn't make conversation, instead opting to take a few hits and lose herself in her routine maintenance of the helicopter. She didn't open the cargo compartment for Mush, but Spike figured he would make enough noise to be heard in the unlikely case he woke up anytime soon.

Spike decided it'd be best to leave her be for a while. "I'm going to go back and scout out the damage on the garage." He glanced at Miss Edith, resting on the beanbag where he'd laid her down. She'd done a Lucy since they'd gotten back, but for her a single Lucy might as well just be headache medication. "Do you feel up to coming along, or do you want some more rest pet?"

"Miss Piggy should be left alone to drown her sorrows. We have an astronomy lesson to attend, and we shant be late, or our Professor will be most cross." Edith rose in her elegant, boneless fashion, and demurely climbed into Spike's arms for quicker travel. His blood whips emerged from his jacket, lifting them up quadrupedally, and they were off like a flash.

The Master had always called him the runt of the litter. There had been Darla, always the old bat's favorite. Changers always had it so easy. She was great in a fight, hard to kill, even had a bunch of fancy torture tricks like suffocation and worse. She'd had fun with _that_ behind closed doors with that big oaf Twilight (Sparkles, as he'd started calling him in their later years.) Twilight was another cape with a gift of a set; he was totally invincible as far as they could ever tell, and with nasty weapons to boot. And his Edith had been a prize as well, loony as she was. She was a true long term precog, and a combat Thinker at that.

Spike? Well Spike had gotten four blood whips that weren't even all that strong. He'd needed his wits to get the most of them, using them as feet and hands and in between and going back and forth in the blink of an eye. He was _fast_ though, truly fast and tireless. That'd saved him and his Edith from dying like the Master, from going in the birdcage like dear Darla.

"This one. We must do astronomy in the proper place," Edith said. The warehouse was still a couple blocks away, but it paid to listen to her about things like this. He effortlessly carried them up the five story tenement and oriented himself on the warehouse from the roof. It was actually a pretty good vantage point, with the intervening buildings and alleyways set up nicely for the view.

Even at this distance, he could see the PRT vans blocking the road and their troopers milling around, going inside and out. It was quite a ways away though, and just as he wondered if maybe he should try to sneak them a bit closer, Miss Edith perked up again.

"I've brought your glasses, to better see the board from our seats." Edith handed him a pair of binoculars she'd had concealed in the folds of her costume. "I know we usually get up to no good far from teacher's eyes, but do try to pay attention to the lecture today." She favored him with a smile, and then leapt out of his arms to roll into a prone position at the edge of the building, waiting excitedly.

Spike took the binoculars with a smile; this was much better. He assumed Miss Edith had palmed them out of the helicopter's backseat and supposed Skidmark wouldn't be needing them anymore. Looking through them, he realized they were a bit of tinkertech from Squealer, the image clear as daylight and moving in response to his eyes as much as his hands. Miss Edith herself needed no such augmentation, her eyes taking in frequencies he was sure all the Tinkers in the world couldn't understand.

Almost as soon as he had his bearings with the device, a radiant blonde hero in a jaunty lightning unitard strode out of the garage, followed by a big guy with a staff in a white feathered outfit. Potential and Angel, two of this town's fair heroes. Both were supposedly reasonable melee types, but according to his research neither had a fraction of his speed, so he wasn't very concerned.

"Look at our Daddy, Spike. He's become the Moon, all soft white light and craters." Spike could swear he sensed the color of his whips change slightly as he felt his blood chill. He should've known that forehead anywhere, behind a new mask or not.

Bloody Twilight. The best part of their new existence away from The Master and his court had been getting Miss Edith away from him, and here Sparkles was, a new blonde at his side and a new spring in his unbreathing body. It was fucking typical that he could stab his mates in the back and slide into a new life just as easy as his old.

Suddenly, the reasoning behind some of Miss Edith's goofier decisions of late was looking a lot more transparent. Dealing with this would require finesse. "Now Miss Edith, you remember Sparkles was very naughty when we saw him last don't you? He decided to go off and play with his new friends and leave us in the lurch."

Absorbed in the vision of her 'Daddy', Miss Edith didn't respond. He was about to lower his binoculars to engage her more effectively when Potential startled, and turned to look directly at him from blocks away. Maybe she'd seen a reflection off the glass? She shouted at the confused looking 'Angel', pointing at Spike's position, and started running up a building on her way in.

She was _interesting_, Potential, but with that old traitor right behind her and all those reinforcements in the area, now wasn't the time to get more hands on with her. The long conversation with Miss Edith to remind her of Sparkles' sins was waiting tonight too, and he didn't want her directly exposed to the ponce before he'd gotten her straightened out.

"Time to go, sweet thing. We wouldn't want to be caught fighting in class," Spike cajoled, grabbing her up and racing away.


	4. Pilot: Scene 4

"Does anyone else feel like going out and partying? I've got wicked H&Hes after that fight and most of the bars are still open." Faith was jaunting into her room to change into street clothes, already rushing into her next high. Willow wasn't sure what was normal for the group, but she felt like she could use some quiet time after her night of grand larceny, near death, and second degree murder.

Dawn had different ideas though, immediately perking up from fiddling with the lock on her gauntlet. "Oooh! I'll go. Just give me half an hour to shower and stuff."

"It's already way, way, way past your bedtime Dawn Patrol." Xander was carefully taking the Cretin costume off, watching not to tear the ruined sleeve any worse. "Warren, you still had some of this material left over right?" Willow looked in regret at the ruins of her own flowing silky costume, torn in multiple places and barely holding together. She supposed it was lucky that someone on her team sidelined in this sort of thing.

Warren in fact, was too busy checking over some damage on April to enter the conversation yet, and Dawn refused to let her chance for late night partying go. "It's a weekend! And even if it wasn't, it's not like I go to school anyways. We could have the tutors shift into a later schedule or something."

"Dawn, you're twelve. Even if you manage to sneak into one of Faith's dives, you'll just get chucked out again the second you show your face."

"Maybe I'm a late bloomer?" Dawn tested. "Hmmm. Warren, what could I trade you for makeup to look nine years older?"

Just as it seemed Warren might be about to answer, Faith sauntered out of her room again, wearing a red leather outfit that didn't conceal much more than Slayer's did. "I suppose I'm on my own again?"

"Xander won't let me go. And it's _so totally unfair_ that you don't even have to shower," Dawn whined.

"I could swim through shit and come out smelling like roses." Faith then addressed the whole group, "Alright everyone, we'll meet up sometime after noon tomorrow to shoot the shit and talk the walk. And Sabrina, that was a mucho awesome rookie performance, keep it up." Faith gave Willow a tap on the butt, making her jump up in surprise, and before Willow could gather her senses she was gone, up a tunnel to one of the Lair's attached and inconspicuous above ground flat.

Willow was stunned for another moment, then said "Does she always do that? It's not that I'm … not, but I'm not, I think, and that was certainly a thing that she did, before she left."

"She has a tendency to be affectionate after life and death situations. If it makes you feel any better, I'll be happy to redeem all your Faith-related physical contact in the future." Xander offered.

Dawn shoved him immediately, finally divested of her sizable (but apparently not very heavy) equipment. "Eww, Xander, don't be gross." She paused, then started peeling at her cheek a bit. "Don't forget to take these fake face-altery thing off too Willow, I forgot I had mine on and went to sleep in it last time."

"You could at least call my invention by its proper name, squirt. It's a coherent cosmetic mask." Warren had finished his spot checks on April, and was now removing the blonde wig over her natural (unnatural?) brown hair and her coherent cosmetics as well.

"These are really good Warren. They come on and off so easily too." The coherent cosmetics were thin patches they could wear on their faces to change up their natural look enough to seem like a slightly different person. Combined with a domino mask, both Warren and Dawn agreed it would foil computer based facial recognition by slightly altering features around their ears and on their foreheads. Willow was just happy that it helped her compete with Faith in the sexy costume department.

With her natural copper hair shook out of her longer black wig and her real face on display, Willow sort of wished she looked like Dark Witch normally instead. Warren's Tinker focus seemed kind of creepy at times, but you couldn't really argue with the synthetic beauty he produced.

"I'm going to get myself and April cleaned up in my lab. After that I should be busy for the rest of the night touching up the damage from those fucking blood whips and optimizing her machine learning data from the fight. I'll talk to you all at the meeting tomorrow." And now was one of those times. Warren's many upgrades to the Lair included sound dampening in the walls, but considering the amount of time he spent alone with April, even Willow had a pretty good idea what, or perhaps who, he'd be doing tonight.

Warren left to his private workshop and room with a still cheery April in tow, and Willow was left with Xander and his little sister in the fairly luxurious common room. "So, my costume is sort of halfway to falling off and I'm still covered with blood. I should probably go shower, then, umm, TV?" Willow said awkwardly.

"I call the Lair shower, it gets the best water pressure." Dawn scooted off, and Xander shrugged his shoulders and led Willow up through the passage Faith had taken up, leading into the basement proper of the somewhat dilapidated flat the Lair was built under.

Faith, Xander, and Warren nominally rented the flat, and though it was a little dingy adding it to the Lair made the whole seem pretty spacious. There were three bedrooms up here, though only one bathroom; Warren practically lived in his lab, ceding the three aboveground rooms to the other Scoobies. Willow got the sense she could've moved in, but in fact she was still living at her parents' house like a normal high schooler. Said parents currently touring Europe made late night escapades like this easier for the near future though.

They approached the bathroom, and Xander theatrically opened the door for her. "You can go first, I'll wait. Don't worry, there's no way you'll take longer than Dawn." Xander sat on the floor to avoid dirtying the furniture and flipped on the TV.

The flat with convenient underground base of course was no accident; it had been made available to the Scoobies by Faith's mysterious employer. Willow was pretty leery of not even knowing the name of the person giving her 'suggestions', but she couldn't deny he seemed to be providing a lot for the team. He'd somehow managed to get Xander custody of Dawn, and even gotten her pulled out of school and into an elaborate tutoring program after her trigger.

After showering the filthy evidence of all her numerous felonies away, Willow dressed in her street clothes and waved Xander through. She took a cursory look around the flat she hadn't seen much of yet, but there wasn't really much to see, and she went back down to the Lair.

Moving between floors really emphasized the contrast between the old flat that looked like a bunch of poor twenty-somethings were living in it and the shiny Lair that had been refurbished by Warren and stuffed full of ill-gotten gains. Still feeling a little overwhelmed, she plunked herself down on the couch and sort of sank into the cushions.

Just as she was about to nod off, Dawn returned from her shower, somehow even more chipper and excited than before. She vaulted the back of the couch and crash-landed next to Willow before saying, "Girl talk time!"

"Oh. Ok. I'm not really sure what to talk about though, since I haven't really had many close female friends lately. And by lately, I mean pretty much since ever. I mean, before joining, since both you and Faith seem friendly. Faith was ah, really friendly earlier in fact," Willow trailed off toward the end, unsure how deep she should dig her hole.

"Yeah! Faith is totally bi and proud and cool and stuff. Some guys from E88 hassled her about it out of costume last month and she totally managed to beat them all up without revealing anything!" Dawn hadn't changed to a sitting position yet, but was waving her hands around and miming punches regardless.

"Oh, that's good. Great even. I'm totally non-judgmental and accepting Willow," Willow said.

"Hmm, so you aren't into her then?" Dawn got a mischievous look in her eye. "What about my brother, do you have a thing for him? I remember you totally used to hang out all the time when I was little."

Willow blushed, and tried to figure out what to say, and was eventually saved by Xander wandering down the stairs. "Hey girls! So what are your opinions: Charlie Brown marathon or Muppet Treasure Island?"

"Umm, that sounds fun, but maybe we should try to figure out who was trying to kill us first? I mean, the extra two people?" Willow asked.

"That won't take long with my awesome set-up!" Dawn bragged, strolling over to the computer. She started typing in a flurry and a Parahumans Online window opened onto her monitor, and then also on the big TV at the front of the room. Dawn opened the cape wiki and went to the search feature.

Willow shuddered a bit, determined not to freak about her near death experience. "The woman that stabbed me called herself Miss Edith, does that bring up anything? It was like she was one step ahead of everything I did, without April diving in I would've been a goner."

Noticing her discomfort, Xander sat down next to her and put an arm around her shoulder. "But thanks to the magic of Weird Science and, ah, black magic, you're perfectly alright with nary a wound." During the trip home, there had been plenty of time for Willow to patch herself up completely, along with the rest of the Scoobies. She was a little apprehensive to feel Cure Wounds fade away with Faith's departure, but she supposed nobody was likely to get hurt in the safety of the Lair.

It seemed like he was about to shuffle over to the other side of the couch, but Willow impulsively grabbed the arm and leaned into his neck. "I needed you too. It was really smart of you to use doubles of yourself to snap me back to my senses."

Xander seemed uncomfortable at the praise, and replied, "I've used them to coordinate in combat like that before. It can be trickier to get them to say things than just move around though, so I usually don't when I need to push a lot of them out quickly."

Willow nodded, secretly excited that Xander probably felt her affirmative instead of seeing it. "Are big things like the cars like that too? You used them as a distraction at the start, but once we were in the fight you were just spinning out the doubles."

Xander explained, "Copying a person and having it do a thing is the easiest. When I do cars or walls or other stuff it always ends up a little crummy around the edges, even when there are examples around. I still can't really get headlights right, for example."

Dawn had started humming in the background, and finally chose this moment to cut in, "So, Miss Edith is a thing. A vague thing; apparently she's some kind of combat thinker, short term precog. Also supposedly crazy as a barrel of monkeys." A picture of Miss Edith showed up on the TV with her entry; even though the picture was taken from rather far away Miss Edith appeared to be waving at the camera and smiling. She was carrying a shopping bag and had what looked like a tiny pair of shoes hanging around her neck by the laces.

Willow agreed, "I can vote a yes on the crazy. I think maybe she was predicting blood movements somehow? Her spell let me see all the blood around. Like, see through other things to see the blood, I mean. It was kind of gross. Also, April managed to surprise her, and hey: no blood there!"

"And Willow takes 'Creepy Thinkers' for 800," said Xander good naturedly.

Dawn continued, she's been travelling with this Spike guy lately; take a look at this! The mysterious blood whip cape appeared on the screen, complete with leather jacket. He was using two of the whips to swing between low buildings and was attacking a flying hero with the other pair. "Nothing much we didn't already know; has blood whips, will travel."

A map of North America took up the screen, and a dozen red circles were superimposed over major cities. "They move around a lot, twenty different sightings in two years. The last time they were settled down for long anywhere was in LA."

She double clicked LA on the map and an article opened on 'The Unholy Order of Saint Vigeous.' Xander interjected, "Well, isn't that a pretentious name."

"They seem like they were a pretty pretentious group." Dawn continued her infodump, "The other members were 'The Master', Darla, and _get this, Twilight!_" Dawn turned around to stick out her tongue at Xander. "See! I told you I'm not the only supervillain to think Twilight is cool!"

"Dawn, I think he got his name before the publication date," Xander replied.

She did some more clicking, and then got a disappointed look on her face. "Oh. Well at least he kept it."

Willow decided to get the conversation back on track before Dawn asked her any searching questions about fictional sparkly vampires in front of Xander. "So this means Spike and Miss Edith will probably leave town just as quick as they came in right? They don't seem to have a reason to stay, and without them the Merchants will be all feeble and unable to exact horrific revenge."

Dawn nodded confidently. "Definitely. I bet we won't be seeing them again."


	5. Pilot: Scene 5

Coil really did dislike the sewers, despite how useful they were to him. Oh, he certainly saw the need for a sanitation system in his city; why, without it, conditions would be awful and people would leave in droves! What he really meant, was that he disliked _being_ in those sewers, he disliked it quite a bit. But for the sake of his constituents, doesn't one have to make sacrifices?

As Coil swam through the sewers he couldn't help but feel distaste for the filthy conditions, rife with disease and infection, no matter how immune he was to such trivialities. He supposed that many wouldn't feel the same way, and might focus on other aspects of the activity. His dear Edna May had enjoyed tending her garden, and while that wasn't nearly so bad as this, the wet New England weather meant that often she came back in the house practically covered in mud! His niece loved her horses so, and even though she was normally a clean girl with good habits she'd been known to get quite dirty after a day of riding.

And his Faith Lehane, the girl he was starting to think of as the daughter he never had, certainly wasn't opposed to even using these very sewers! With her power, she perhaps had even less to worry about than he did down here, but it was the principle of the thing. She would have loved the thrill of the chase that Ward had given him earlier, even with, or perhaps because of, all the risks involved. Coil just put it down to everyone being different and having their own strengths and weaknesses.

Faith was a prime case of strengths and weaknesses, one he'd like to think he'd been handling well. While she was excellent at thinking on her feet, his girl wasn't the best at grand strategy, and Coil had helpfully supplied her with targets for her and her friends. Those targets always had something fun for her to steal, and if she was hurting enemies of the city, or Coil's personal enemies in the bargain? Well, he would just call that hitting two birds with one stone!

Despite disliking sneaking through the sewers, Coil worked hard at it like he did anything he cared about. He had carefully gone over years of city plans to learn every wrinkle of the place, every shortcut in the great underground maze of tunnels and drains. And as just reward for his hard work, he soon reached just the exit he'd planned; an emergency storm drain emptying into the ocean, built in case of a catastrophic overflow. Coil slithered out of the drain and into the much cleaner salt water, and allowed himself a second to relax.

Such trips were sometimes futile, but this one had paid off immensely, and Coil congratulated himself on a job well done. Trainwreck had been a legitimate danger to his city, and nobody would miss the dozen or so thugs Coil had swallowed with him, adding precious inches of permanent length to his snake form. His Faith and her friends had even shown some plucky initiative in killing that vile Skidmark, and though his cooling body had provided less of a benefit than it might have otherwise, Coil indulged himself in some fatherly pride for his growing girl.

After reaching the rocky shore Coil shook off the water, not worried about mud clinging to his magnificent scales, and once he was finally dry he transformed back into his much smaller human shape. Mayor Richard Wilkins resumed the jog he had begun earlier that night, ready to turn his attention to more conventional matters when he returned to his office. A mayor's work was never done after all; he supposed he should be thankful that he didn't need to sleep.

_Episode Credits Roll_


End file.
